


Sunk Cost Fallacy

by idiotbrothers



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: M/M, Matchmaking, One-Sided Attraction, Unresolved Romantic Tension, mentions of Quentin/Alice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 00:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14484390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiotbrothers/pseuds/idiotbrothers
Summary: Penny keeps inadvertently walking in on Quentin's dreams. He catches on to the meaning behind them pretty quickly, and wants nothing to do with it. Although he doesn't have the slightest intention of helping, he ends up doing so anyway.





	Sunk Cost Fallacy

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've posted a fic in ages, and it feels pretty good to have written anything even vaguely creative after so much time has passed. I originally intended to focus this primarily on Quentin and Eliot, but somehow Penny ended up with a starring role. It's set sometime in the first season of the show, probably in an alternate timeline tbh. No spoilers aside from an allusion to "The World in the Walls". I hope everything's in-character!

Penny took one look at his surroundings and groaned, clenching his fists. “God fucking damn it, Coldwater. Not again.”

He was in a room full of clocks with warped faces, pendulums frozen in ominous silence. The air was laced with blue and gray, thick and lethargy-inducing. A single dead moth was suspended by an invisible string, magic rippling around it in ugly, bulbous bursts. It was fucking dreary, but Penny had seen worse from Quentin.

Penny jumped a bit when Quentin popped into view a few feet away, his back turned to Penny. A tall stranger with dark hair was looming over him. “What...” Penny started as the stranger made a grab for Quentin and pressed their mouths together in a searing kiss, his long fingers tangling in Quentin’s stupid hair. The shrill sound of a fire alarm rang out, breaking through the deathly quiet. Band-aids started pouring down from the void yawning above them like silent rain. “Jesus,” Penny muttered, “Even his wet dreams are twisted.”

He marched up to Quentin and shoved at his shoulder roughly, making the strange man embracing him flicker several times before disappearing entirely. “Hey. Shit-for-brains.” Quentin turned to him, looking dazed and on the verge of tears, his eyes huge and glassy. “Penny? What are...why...?” A band-aid fluttered past his nose.

“We’ve been through this, Coldwater. Wake the hell up.” Quentin stared at him blankly, uncomprehending. Penny gritted his teeth. “Quentin. You’re dreaming, you fuckin’ idiot. Let me out before I tear you a new asshole.” With that, he reached out, took a lock of Quentin’s hair between his fingers, and pulled as hard as he could.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Quentin gasped as they both emerged from the dream, Quentin tangled in his sheets and clutching at the side of his head, and Penny standing by his nightstand. Quentin scrambled upright, leaning against his headboard. A scowl grew on his face to match Penny’s own, and they glared at each other for a minute without speaking.

When Quentin did speak, his voice was laced with venom. “Stay the _fuck_ out of my head, Penny. I’m sick of you intruding and ruining everything.” Penny had to resist the urge to punch him in his pathetic face.

“In case you’ve forgotten, I was trying to save your worthless life the last time I _intruded_. And you’re the one who called me here in the first place! So either this is a _cry for help_ , or you’ve got some sick voyeuristic desire to have me watch you get your tiny dick wet. Pick your poison.”

Quentin buried his face in his hands, making a noise that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed sob. He dropped his hands to his lap, and his expression, when he lifted his head again, was surprisingly neutral. “I never did thank you for that,” he said. “For helping me out of the Scarlatti Web.”

Penny looked away from the sharp glint in his eyes, wondered at the way his fingers twitched. “You got yourself out in the end,” he said gruffly, “so none of the rest of it matters.”

Quentin sighed, clearly discontented. “I’ll work on my wards,” he said, changing the subject.

_Sure you will_ , Penny thought bitterly. He’d heard that one more times than he could count, by now. For whatever reason, Quentin’s innermost thoughts had a bad habit of leaking when he and Penny were around each other - and sometimes even when they weren’t. It hadn’t really happened since the Hedge Bitch ordeal, but clearly something had triggered it again. Penny didn’t intend to stick around to find out what that was.

“Get it right this time,” he snapped, making a swift exit and slamming the door to Quentin’s room behind him. As he descended the stairs, hoping to see Kady before he projected himself out of the Physical Kids cottage, he nearly collided with Eliot.

“Oh,” Eliot exclaimed, righting himself. “What brings you here?”

Penny scoffed. “Your boy toy’s getting up to weird shit in his head again. You might wanna talk to him about that.”

Eliot looked bewildered, his brow furrowing. “My...who? Surely Derek has made himself scarce by now? It’s been hours since we - " 

“I’m talking about Coldwater, dumbass. He’s, like, spiraling or something. The creepy dreams are back.” _With one pretty major difference_. Penny didn’t really feel like addressing that part. 

“Anyway, he’d probably open up to you if you asked him to. So, y’know...” He trailed off, starting to push past Eliot, but stopping when Eliot’s hand gripped his shoulder.

“Hey, since when have you cared so much?” Eliot looked far too discerning for someone who was obviously stoned at nine in the morning. Penny actually shuddered.

“Shut up. I’m just trying to get him to stop interrupting my sleep with his sad-sack bullshit.” He wrenched himself away from Eliot and got out of there without another word, Traveling to an isolated park far away from Brakebills. He needed to think. 

 

* * *

 

Not even a month later, Penny found himself in Quentin’s dreamspace again. The tall, dark-haired guy from before was back, this time simply cradling Quentin’s face while he cried softly. Black water lapped at the ground they were kneeling on and a rust-covered, broken lock hovered indecisively between them. Keys of all shapes and sizes grew from the water like physics-defying creeper vines.

Penny didn’t have time for this.

Having seen enough, he ran full-tilt towards Quentin and literally tackled him out of the dream, the both of them ended up tangled together in his bed, panting through the shock of abrupt wakefulness. “I told you,” Penny hissed in between gasping breaths, “to _get it right_.” He yanked at the collar of Quentin’s sleep shirt menacingly, and Quentin coughed, swatting at his arms.

“Get off me,” he huffed, jerking his leg and nearly kneeing Penny in the crotch. Penny immediately complied, all but falling off the bed in his haste to break contact with Quentin. He cleared his throat, resenting how hot his face felt.

“By the way, has anyone ever told you how hokey and cliched your dream imagery is? Talk about boring.”

Quentin frowned, pulling at his boxers where they had ridden down to expose part of his left hipbone. Penny definitely didn’t think about how his bare thigh had been touching that spot moments ago. “My dreams aren’t part of the public domain, so no.” 

He gave Penny a pointed glare, and Penny rolled his eyes. “You’re the one with a leaky faucet up here,” he said, tapping his temple. “I can call Eliot in to do some plumbing if that’d make this stop.”

Something flickered in Quentin’s eyes. “Eliot? Why...why Eliot? Where did that come from?”

That sealed it. Quentin was ridiculously easy to read. And he was so goddamn slow on the uptake. The combination was maddening. “Wow, you are incredibly fucking stupid,” Penny said dryly.

Quentin bristled at the insult, swiping his hair out of his face furiously. “It’s not my fault you’re always so cryptic and tight-lipped! Plus, like ninety percent of our conversations start and end with verbal abuse. Can you blame me for tuning you out occasionally?” 

Penny exhaled slowly, giving Quentin a once-over. He was practically vibrating with anger. “Okay, geez, cool your tits. I’m just exhausted, and I really don’t want this to become a regular thing. Your dream juices shooting all over me, I mean.” Quentin made a face at his phrasing, and Penny shrugged. “I’m serious, I want this to be the last time, Coldwater. Leave me out of your depressing jerk-off fantasies.”

Quentin blushed, his mouth working soundlessly for a few seconds. “They’re _not_ \- You don’t get...I...”

“I’m kidding,” Penny said, putting him out of his misery. _Though clearly you have some serious intimacy issues to get over._ “But we understand each other, right? Last. Time.” 

Quentin looked off to the side, fidgeting. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “I’m not doing it on purpose.” 

Penny’s eyes narrowed. “Well, _fix_ it on purpose.” He then tilted his head, cupped his hands around his mouth, and hollered Eliot’s name at the top of his lungs. Quentin full-body flinched, and the sound of somebody clambering ungracefully up the stairs made Penny smirk. Eliot burst through the door a second later, uncharacteristically disheveled.

“What is it, what happened, who died?” He looked frantically between Quentin and Penny, eyes wide.

Penny went over and patted him on the back. “Do something about this one and his overactive imagination,” he said, pointing at Quentin.

Eliot blinked, visibly relaxing as it sunk in for him that there was no disaster to deal with quite yet. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Quentin groaned exasperatedly. “That’s what I’m saying, El.” 

“You’ll figure it out,” Penny grunted, feeling cranky all over again. He left them to it, not questioning the pinprick of pain in the center of his chest. It wasn’t even ten AM and he was already having a bitch of a day. 

 

* * *

 

The third time it happened was only a few days later. And there was no ambiguity to be had, this time. Tall, dark-haired Eliot was sticking his tongue down Quentin’s throat, and they were going at it like the world would end at any second. Penny erupted into metaphorical hives on the spot. He got even more of a shock when the dream shifted and their clothes were gone, Eliot starting to spread Quentin’s legs open and - No No No No No.

“NO,” Penny yelled, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and shaking his head. Luckily for him, the sudden noise woke Quentin up.

“Penny? Oh, fuck. Jesus. Man, I’m so fucking sorry.”

When he opened his eyes, Quentin was hovering over him, mortification and remorse warring on his face. “How much...how much of that did you see?” He sounded like he’d nearly choked on his own tongue.

Penny wanted to bleach the images out of his brain. “Not much,” he lied. “I could just tell what I’d walked into.”

Quentin tore at his hair. “Oh my god. Oh my god, what’s wrong with me?”

Penny bit back an acrid response, took a deep breath to calm himself. “Nothing’s wrong with you. You finally fucking realized how you feel, right? Took you long enough.” 

Quentin looked even more panicked at that, somehow. “No, that’s...it’s just...I’ve got Alice. I’ve got Alice, and we’re good, and this was just a meaningless dream. Just a collection of random echoes and - and neural firings. A string of brain farts. Whatever! It doesn’t mean jack shit.”

“You know better than anyone that that’s not true,” Penny said firmly.

Quentin’s breathing became erratic, and he got up to pace around his room, his hands moving in sporadic, aborted gestures. Penny made himself comfortable in Quentin’s bed, quietly watching him approach the edge of a panic attack.

“Penny, what do I do?” His voice was thin and reedy. Penny raised his eyebrows.

“The fuck are you asking me for?”

Quentin stopped pacing, turned to face him. “I don’t know. You’re the, uh. You’re the common denominator here, right? You’ve been hanging out in my head for a while. So if you have any, like...insights to share with me...I’d appreciate it.” He paused, then added, “A lot.”

Penny stared at him incredulously, and Quentin sighed. “You figured out this whole,” he swallowed, “Eliot thing before I did. You’re always speaking in riddles around me like some kind of disgruntled inter-dimensional Yoda. I feel like you understand me better than I understand me, sometimes. And that feels so wrong to say, but please. Please.”

His bottom lip had started to quiver, Penny noticed. God, he really did look like a kicked puppy when he was this upset.  _Fuck_.

Penny got off the bed, planted his hands on Quentin’s shoulders and backed him into the wall with two large strides. “Snap out of it,” he growled, putting on his meanest glare.

Tears spilled down Quentin’s cheeks, and he gasped a little. “I - I don’t know what to - "

_Jesus goddamn Christ, I have to do everything myself around here_.

No sooner had he thought it than Penny grasped Quentin’s chin and kissed him passionately, putting all the frustration and animosity and - dare he think it - jealousy that had built up over many long months into it. If there was a hint of fondness beneath it all, well, Quentin wouldn’t be able to sense it.

Impossibly, Quentin sank into it for a minute or two, kissing back as best he could and letting his hands rest on Penny’s waist.

But reality seemed to slap him in the face eventually, because he pulled away and held his hand over his mouth, spluttering incoherently. “What - What was - Why did you - "

Penny took half a second to soothe his own rattled nerves before saying, “Shush. Stop overthinking. I’m trying to tell you, _that’s_ what you do. You feel it out with Eliot. You’ll both know if it’s right or not. Something’s been there for ages, and Alice knows it as well as you do. You can’t keep using her just because it’s easier and safer than the alternative. Okay?”

Penny’s heart was beating out of his chest. He nearly Traveled through the floor when Quentin took his hand, squeezed it as he looked him directly in the eyes, gratitude and wonderment radiating off him. “Okay. Thank you, Penny.” He beamed somewhat tearfully at him, and Penny maintained his default uncaring expression with a tremendous amount of mental effort.

“Yeah, yeah. You owe me one, Coldwater.” He pulled his hand out of Quentin’s grasp. “And if you tell anyone I kissed you, I’ll kick your ass so hard you’ll leave the stratosphere.”

Quentin laughed. “I won’t say a word,” he said cheerfully.

His good mood was giving Penny acid reflux. He told Quentin as much, then left him to his own devices. He spent the rest of the day seeing how close he could get to a volcano without singeing his clothes.

 

* * *

 

There were no more dreams after that, just waking nightmares. From Penny’s perspective, anyway.

He’d taken to avoiding Quentin and Eliot, since seeing them together made his temper flare and threw his internal compass out of whack. He’d once tried Traveling out of a room that Quentin and Eliot had entered, and ended up in the middle of the Sahara desert. Being around each of them individually was almost as bad, because all they did was fuss about each other and essentially ask him for relationship advice. It made him vaguely sick to his stomach.

“I’m not your low-rent Dr. Phil, okay?” He finally snapped at Eliot one day. “I don’t need to know how Quentin feels at every given moment of every given day, for fuck’s sake. Sack up and talk to _him_ , not me. And enough with the fucking day drinking already.”

He made a grab for Eliot’s ever-present flask, but Eliot smacked his hand away, cradling it to his chest like he was protecting a child. “Don’t touch,” Eliot admonished him, clicking his tongue.

Penny threw his hands up. “You’re both lost causes. No wonder you ended up together.” 

“Penny,” Eliot said softly, straightening out on the couch, “Why are you _really_ upset? I know there’s something else going on.” 

Penny cringed inwardly. How the fuck was Eliot so oddly perceptive at the worst possible moments?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Penny said, just as Quentin came in and joined Eliot on the couch.

Eliot instinctively looped his arm around Quentin’s shoulders, and Quentin leaned into him, probably not even giving it a second of thought. It boggled Penny’s mind that they could each obsess over the other’s well-being to the point that they were constantly talking Penny’s ear off about what-ifs, while simultaneously seeming to be so comfortable with each other that it was like they’d known each other for a lifetime.

“Why the stare?” Quentin asked Penny, who realized too late that he had indeed been staring. He tore his eyes away and grimaced.

“Nothing.” Shit, his tone was too acidic. He shot Eliot a quick glance, irritated to see that he was looking right back at him contemplatively. Quentin was oblivious, as usual.

“We should talk, Penny,” Eliot said, much to Penny’s dismay. “About you, for once.”

Quentin interrupted before Penny could respond, saying, “Wait, now? I was hoping you and I could...talk...upstairs.”

Penny didn’t miss the way Quentin’s hand slipped under Eliot’s robe. He hoped neither of them could tell that he was grinding his teeth together at this point.

Eliot leaned down to kiss Quentin's forehead, his breath hitching almost inaudibly. “In a bit, I promise. There’s just something I’m trying to - "

“Forget it, Eliot,” Penny said, managing to keep his voice level. “Worry about yourself. And Coldwater. Just please stop involving me in whatever the hell this is, ‘cause I don’t give a shit.”

He Traveled to his room before the white-hot jealousy clawing at his throat could burst forth and make him do something incredibly stupid. 


End file.
